


Nightmare

by eggsinsunnyside



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Nightmare, Not sorry at all, Post-Sburb, i think, this ain't even angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:05:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5095127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggsinsunnyside/pseuds/eggsinsunnyside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone had their nightmares. For some, once a week or twice a week, perhaps even thrice. John on the other hand, suffers them almost every night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmare

Everyone had their nightmares. John was no exception. When he was 7, he was thankfully never aware enough to remember his dreams but whenever he woke up from them, he would look for his dad. It was mainly for comfort but deep down, John had the feeling it was because of another reason, one that he knew of but couldn’t quite word it out.

By the age of 8, John had a huge hatred for clowns. They always made him feel vulnerable and alone. The clowns never left him alone, not even in his sleep where he could hear them heckling and laughing at him in the darkness. 

When he turned 11, his dad took him to the doctor when he told him about his recurring nightmares. The doctor gave him strange pills that would stop the nightmares, and advised him to take it every night before he went to sleep. For a few days, the pills worked. He finally got to sleep without seeing or hearing a clown at all. He dreamt of flying in the blue sky, soaring over the white fluffy clouds. Sometimes, he dreamt that he was in a golden city and flew freely passed the architecture. 

Then his nightmares returned, more terrifying than ever. The clowns were no longer like a human but a monster with ink black skin and white, razor sharp teeth. Their clothes were more colourful and mismatched than before, but that just seemed to make the clowns more horrifying. Instead of just heckling him and his numerous flaws, they would lash out with claws that scratched his skin, causing black sludge to fall out. 

John had lost count how many times he was shaken awake by his dad who had been awakened from his screaming and cried in his shirt until his eyes were red and puffy. They had returned to the doctor again, and he had been prescribed with another type of medication. He had also been assigned a therapist, someone he would talk to about his constant nightmares. He talked about how he kept seeing monsters dressed as clowns and how they would make him bleed gunk. He revealed that the clowns would heckle at him and his flaws.

There was one particular nightmare that always made John quake with fear and deprive him of sleep for days. He had started receiving this particular nightmare when he turned 11. The nightmare started out ominously, he would find a girl dressed in black and purple in a dreary, grey castle, and follow her up flights of stairs to the top of a tower. He would see red and black liquids pooling around two bodies, his dad and a woman he didn’t know. Across him was a tall, menacing, black monster with the distinct head of a dog, large feathery wings and a sword stabbed through its stomach. As soon as he saw the monster, it let out a distorted roar and suddenly John would find a black blade protruding from his blue shirt. 

There were times John refused to go out of his room because of that nightmare. He felt safe in his room where nobody but him came in and out. His dad often encouraged him to go outside and enjoy the wind like he used to as a kid but John was deathly afraid of seeing that black monster outside. He argued with himself that it was only dreams that he was afraid of, not the outside world he loved exploring. 

Today was April 13th, his 13th birthday. He had woken up from a dreamless sleep and heard the sound of car engines. That must’ve been his father, leaving for work as usual. John glanced at his clock and read 9:10 am through his short sighted eyes. He had considered returning to sleep but today was his birthday, he couldn’t afford to sleep through the day. He picked up his glasses from his bedside table and went downstairs to enjoy himself a nice birthday breakfast; a bowl of cereal dunked in milk. Settling on the couch with the bowl in arms, he switched on the television and proceeded to spend 5 hours watching shows. 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have eaten the cereal because his body began to ache. First, it was the small throbs of pain in his legs. Then breathing began to hurt. His breathing turned into panting, then it became heavy wheezes. Black liquid dripped from his lips and splattered the floor as he coughed them out harshly. He was surrounded by the clown monsters again, but none of them were heckling. They all looked down at the pitiful boy wheezing on the floor, clutching to his chest and face contorted in pain. Their faces were devoid of emotions for the first time since John saw them and then the tall, black monster appeared in front of John, eyes narrowed and a hand on the hilt of the sword. 

It got his arms first, causing black, oily liquid to bleed out instead of red blood. John couldn’t feel anything but the suffocating pain in his lung, he couldn’t breathe at all. Then he found a sword in his chest where more of the sludge spilled out, staining his white couch with black. John looked back up blearily at the monster. He mumbled out names of people he didn’t know but remembered, and smiled as everything went as black as his dreams.

On April 13th, 4:31 pm, Mr Egbert had returned to his house from work when he discovered 13 year old son, John Egbert dead in his house. His cause of death was from poison though the poisonous culprit had yet to be found. Black splotches could be found near the deceased boy but were identified as oil. Mr Egbert claims to not have any kind of oil other than cooking oil in the house, whether his claim is true or not has yet to be proven. We all grieve today for John Egbert whose birthday was today and pray that he rests in peace. 

On April 13th, 4:31 pm, John woke up. He was wearing blue pajamas with a wind symbol on his chest and a long, dark blue hood at the neck. Looking around, he realised he was in a park filled with children playing little games and he was sitting on the swing. 

“John!” A girl called out and he looked at the source of the voice where three kids around his age were, waving madly at his direction, especially the girl with white dog ears. 

“John, over here!” The girl with white dog ears yelled, a huge smile on her face. John smiled, stood up from the swings and made a mad run for the trio. He leapt into the group, bringing them into a tight group hug and laughed. 

From now on, he would no longer be haunted by the clowns of his nightmares because his friends were here to chase the nightmares away.

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
